More about PlaneTalk

Endorsed by the great Tommy Emmanuel, CGP*, it was written for all those players who know their scales, are familiar with modes, know their Pentatonics like the backs of their hands and yet still can't for the life of them improvise those nice melodic lines that always sound so right. PlaneTalk, among many other things, teaches the mindset that enables just that. I (the author) call it

'The Easiest Yet Most Powerful Guitar Lesson You Will Ever Learn'

The Book describes in words and pictures the simple mindset, the DVD demonstrates it all in real time to real music, and the nifty folded-sleeve-with-insert affair called the Guitar Slide Rule crystallizes it all at a glance.

The 'Full Package' also includes membership at the private PlaneTalkers' Forum, where you can ask me and other members questions and where you can also gain access to 19 (and counting) stand-alone video lessons, all reinforcing the simple but all-powerful PlaneTalk mindset. PlaneTalk has been selling online since 1999.

Put those scales and Modes on the back burner

There is a saying: "Practice scales and you'll wind up playing scales" I certainly found that true when I started playing back in the 1960s. I learned them all, all the modes, the major and minor Pentatonics, the Blues Scale and it always just sounded like I was practicing scales when I attempted to improvise a solo. They always had that amateurish vibe about them. I eventually gave up and turned my attention to chords. I had discovered through trial and error that (and this is my saying) "Melody Loves Chord Tones". All those solos and memorable lines that I loved were in fact mostly made up of chord tones, those notes that are in the chords as they come and go in the progressions. So I made it my business to figure out a way to quickly see chord tones instead of scale/mode patterns. I knew that there had to be some fretboard landmark, some easy mental visualization 'trick' I could use to track it all.

My 'Eureka!' moment came one day in about 1975 while I was poking around the fretboard looking for standard tuning slide guitar positions. I had found it. To my amazement, It was one of the first things I had ever learned about playing guitar.

The PlaneTalk
package is the exposition of that simple 'trick'. Naturally, you will have to practice just as much as ever to master the instrument, but you will now know what to practice.

*CGP stands for Certified Guitar Player, an honorary degree given out by the late great Chet Atkins to exceptional players.